David Greenberg has an interesting piece about the huge resurgence in Ronald Reagan’s popularity, reminding us that the 40th president was often controversial and even disliked during his term in office.
Most people would be surprised to hear that in 1992, significantly more people viewed his presidency unfavorably than favorably–and that his approval ratings stayed in the middling range until about 1999.
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for the first 24 months of Reagan’s first term he was one of the least popular presidents of recent times. At the end of his first year in office, he was less popular than were Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, John Kennedy, and Dwight Eisenhower (his four predecessors elected into the presidency) at the end of their first years. At the end of his second year, he posted only a 37 percent job-approval rating from Gallup, again lower than the four elected predecessors.
The middle years of Reagan’s presidency did see a rebound in his fortunes, fueled by a rebound in the economy, and into late 1986 he commanded high (though never astronomical) approval ratings. But with the revelation of the Iran-Contra scandal, his popularity plummeted, not to recover until his administration’s tail end, when it was buoyed by farewells and retrospectives. (In February 1987, for example, 53 percent of the public disapproved of Reagan’s performance while just 40 percent approved.)
